USA: espío luego existo

"Yo no espío, eso lo hace la CIA"

No es la primera entrada que mi blog destinada a glosar la costumbre de los servicios de inteligencia (?) estadounidenses de convertir en su objetivo a enemigos y aliados por igual. Es decir, que han perdido el sentido del límite. Que espían por lo que les caiga en el saco. Espío luego existo. Para más inri o los pillan o les sale un Snowden que canta. El resultado es un cabreo que recorre, como el desprestigiado fantasma de Marx, el puñetero planeta en crisis. La última gracieta de las orejas globales de la Casa Blanca parece haber sido ni más ni menos que interceptar el teléfono privado de la canciller alemana Ángela Merkel. Lo peor del caso es que debió ser una verdadera chapuza de pinchazo digital, vamos. El Spiegel, que no acostumbra a chuparse el dedito, levantó la liebre. La contraparte alemana, aliados de los estadounidenses, muy morigerados ellos, tacharon de "plausible" el asunto. Merkel que no se va por las ramas, puso a Obama en su sitio con una llamada seguramente grabada para la historia universal de la infamia por la White House. Estados Unidos niega que espiaran el teléfono de Merkel. Tal vez la estación CIA o a los mandados del NSA de turno en el asunto, se les cruzó  de forma casual una conversación inesperada y reconocieron la inconfundible voz de Angi Merkel. Menudo caramelo. Escuchar en secreto a la mujer que dirige Europa. Hacerlo en vivo, en directo y con total impunidad. Un subidón. Un orgasmo. Mejor que una línea erótica. Pero, ¿habrán aprendido algo de lo que captaron?, ¿van a seguir metiendo tanto la pata?. ¿O la oreja?. Una idea gratuita: que los inteligentes servicios estadounidenses nos soliciten información, con buenos modos, sin interceptar E-mails, sin husmear en las miserias de los ciudadanos. Sin demasiadas amenazas.Y que paguen de forma equitativa y razonable las confidencias. Que se conviertan en nuestros confesores laicos. Todos los ciudadanos del mundo mundial seremos sus rendidos confidentes. Todo el poder para los espías. De ellos será el reino y la gloria. Amen.

"Leading politicians and media commentators in Germany expressed serious concern on Thursday following allegations that US intelligence agencies had tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone. Merkel's spokesman confirmed that she placed an angry call Wednesday night to United States President Barack Obama to discuss the suspicions, which arose from an inquiry by SPIEGEL".

"La canciller alemana Angela Merkel ha protestado ante el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, por el espionaje de su teléfono móvil por parte de los servicios secretos estadounidenses.

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Esta reacción alemana tiene su origen en diversas informaciones del semanario Der Spiegel. Además una inspección realizada por los servicios de información alemanes y la Agencia federal de seguridad ha llevado al Gobierno germano a considerar que las sospechas de espionaje son "plausibles".

El portavoz de Merkel, Steffen Seibert, confirmó que Alemania ha demandado "un inmediato y completo esclarecimiento" del asunto, después de obtener "indicios sólidos" de que Washington vigila las comunicaciones del teléfono privado de la Canciller.
Seibert ha afirmado que espera que las autoridades estadounidenses proporcionen información sobre el alcance global de este tipo de prácticas contra Alemania.
El portavoz alemán expresó también que "como aliado cercano de Estados Unidos, el Gobierno federal espera que en el futuro exista una base clara sobre las actividades de los servicios y su cooperación".
Por su parte, el Gobierno de Estados Unidos negó las sospechas de Berlín. "Estados Unidos no está interceptando y no tiene la intención de interceptar las comunicaciones de la Canciller", declaró Jay Carney, portavoz de la Casa Blanca".

The 2013 Nobel Peace Price Another Farce?

Another Nobel Peace Prize – Another Farce?
By Felicity Arbuthnot


Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/another-nobel-peace-prize-another-farce/5354904

"This year’s Peace Prize awarded, on Friday, 11th October, went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) the Netherlands based organization, founded only in 1997, unheard of by most, charged with ridding the world of chemical weapons.

The Award came ten days after an OPCW team arrived in Syria to eliminate the country’s chemical weapons stock. A brief visit in August had them scuttling out, an apparent courage free entity, within days. President Assad had requested their investigations back in March, after it was claimed terrorist factions had used chemical weapons – insurgents now believed to be from some eighty three countries, backed primarily by the US, UK, Quatar and Saudi Arabia.

The OPCW’s return, on 1st October, is now touted as a breakthrough with an intransigent regime who had previously blocked them at every turn – rather than had the door open for them since March – the team, now billed as brave souls, working in a war zone – in which the Syrian people and government live – and die – every day – in a blood-soaked insurgency of that that famed “international community’s” making.

Is the annual Nobel justified anyway to an organization which has, in spite of the nightmare hazards to an entire population, agree to destroying an alleged 1,000 tons of highly dangerous chemicals (if we believe what we are told) in just months?

In context, the US still has over three times as much chemical weaponry (estimated at over 3,100 tons) and has defied the specified April 2012 deadline for their disposal, on the basis that the dangers are so great that they cannot complete building the appropriate facilities until 2020 (some reports state 2023.) For the same reasons of technical and safety obstacles, Russia has a believed five times the US amount left to destroy.(i) Shameful double standards rule supreme.

Wade Mathews, who worked on the U.S. chemical stockpile destruction, is uncertain that Syria can meet the deadline. He states that the U.S. disposal took billions of dollars, the cooperation of many levels of government – including the military – and a safe environment, to make sure the destruction was safely executed. (See i.)

To the observer, it would seems that the OPCW has taken on a high profile, rushed, reckless enterprise, under pressure from the US/UN, which could potentially poison Syria’s people and environment in orders of magnitude beyond the alleged horrors unleashed by, near certainly, the insurgents.

So what possible reason for the OCPW Nobel, and why now? Interestingly, OPCW Director-General, Ahmet Üzümcü, is Turkish, a former Consul in Syria’s Aleppo, former Ambassador to Israel, a former Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO and then to the UN in Geneva.

Apart from Director General Üzümcü obviously having some remarkably useful inside tracks, Syria’s neighbour, Turkey is the sole Middle East NATO Member State (never mind it has no connection to the North Atlantic, being set amid the Mediterranean, Aegean, Black Sea, Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.)

NATO is certainly not asleep at the wheel when it comes to Syria, as neither are the European Union, which Turkey – in spite of being “Gateway to the Orient” with the majority of the country in it – also aspires to be a Member. Britain and France are, of course EU Members, joined as one with Turkey in meddling in Syria.

NATO, has long sought footholds further east. In an enlightening letter quoted over the years in these columns, but worthy of revisiting, on 26th June 1979, General Alexander Hague, on his retirement as NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, wrote to the then Secretary General, Joseph Luns.

The focus then, of course, was in the context of the Cold War, however the regional geography and the diplomatic skills of President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov in the Syria crisis make the tactics outlined again starkly relevant, especially as President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have arguably been diplomatically eclipsed to near irrelevance.

The US-EU-NATO aspirations for the Baghdad-Damascus road to lead to Tehran (diplomatic “break through” or not) should never be under estimated. Neither indeed, as has been demonstrated since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the desire to encircle Russia as confirmed by encroachment of US-NATO bases at astonishing speed and with equal chutzpah.(ii)

The tactics in the NATO letter are arguably as relevant to aims today as when it was written, albeit, targets, circumstances, field of play (or planned war) widened. The penultimate paragraphs read:

“We should constantly bear in mind the necessity of continuously directing attention to the ... threat and of further activising our collaboration with the mass media.

“If argument, persuasion and impacting the media fail, we are left with no alternative but to jolt the faint hearted in Europe through the creations of situations, country by country, as deemed necessary, to convince them where their interests lie.

“The course of actions which we have in mind may become the only sure way of securing the interests of the West.”

Back to the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. Norwegian Fredrik Heffermehl, jurist, writer, translator, former Vice President of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, amongst numerous other prestigious international appointments, has long been a thorn in the side of the Norway based Nobel Committee.(iii)

Heffermehl has argued in his published study: “The Nobel Peace Prize. What Nobel Really Wanted”, that the Norwegian Parliament had distorted Alfred Nobel’s intention for the Prize. His researches found numerous academic studies that supported his thesis. The Norwegian Parliament and the Nobel Committee emphatically did not. His dissertation, however has been published and expanded in Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, Russian and in December 2011 was endorsed by Michael Nobel, of the Nobel Family Association, who supported Heffermehl in his assertion that on their present course, Norwegian politicians might lose their control of the Peace Prize.

Norway is, of course is in the NATO “family.” Interesting is the criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize nomination. The Nobel website stipulates:

“Deadline for submission. The Committee bases its assessment on nominations that must be postmarked no later than 1st February each year ... ... In recent years, the Committee has received close to 200 different nominations for different nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. The number of nominating letters is much higher, as many are for the same candidates.”

So who, in the year to 1st February 2013 rushed to nominate the near unheard of OPCW? And is it conceivable there might have been some accommodation with the date (heaven forbid.)

Well, unless you are very young, you may never know, there is a while to wait:

“The names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later”, states the Nobel website.

It might be worth noting the rotating Members of the Executive Council for the OPCW for 2012-2013 include countries which have done more than a little meddling in the affairs of Syria, including France, the UK and US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Norway is also on the year’s Council.

Britain’s Foreign Office Minister, Hugh Robertson, sent enthusiastic congratulations to the OPCW on their Award, adding:

“ The UK is providing an initial contribution £2million to support the work of the OPCW in Syria and we stand ready to provide further assistance.”(iv)

Robertson also lauds the OPCW, referring to: “The recent use of chemical weapons by the regime in Syria ...” an entirely unproven and arguably, even libelous allegation.

Speculation, however, as to how another surprising Nobel Peace Prize came about is vacuous. In fifty years though, it is worth a bet that honest historians will be shaking their heads in disbelief.

Another Nobel, another farce".

Atentos a la tuberculosis resistente

Supongo que muchos de mis visitantes (gracias mil) piensan que la tuberculosis  (TB) es una enfermedad propia del siglo XIX de la que morían románticos y literatos mustios. Pero presten alguna atención a los datos de la Organización Mundial de la Salud que reproduzco a continuación. ¿Qué no les importa?. Si pensamos así pecamos de egoístas pero por encima de todo de tontos. Las cepas multiresistentes de tuberculosis son una amenaza para cualquiera que esté en contacto con ellas. Supongamos que en una ciudad europea la afluencia de inmigrantes africanos facilita la presencia de potenciales portadores de cepas multiresistentes de TB. Supongamos que por motivos que no voy a analizar dichas personas no siguen el tratamiento adecuado. Como las cepas multiresistentes no conocen de papeles ni de pasaportes, se suman al "emporio" de microorganismos patógenos. Así que es un problema que nos afecta. De una u otra manera. Y por cierto, el tratamiento de la tuberculosis es bastante económico en comparación con otras epidemias. Les dejo el enlace.

"Approximately 16,000 people were diagnosed with multidrug-resistant  tuberculosis in 2012 but were not given the treatment they needed to stay alive and prevent the spread of the disease, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

While there has been some progress – with a drop in cases to 8.6m in 2012, from 8.7m in 2011, and in deaths from 1.4m in 2011 to 1.3m in 2012 – a report by the WHO says there are serious concerns about the estimated 3 million people with TB who are not receiving treatment because they live in remote rural areas, and about the spread of drug-resistant strains".

Drones criminales

El uso indiscriminado de aviones no tripulados, y las  consecuencias de sus ataques sobre civiles inocentes, pueden constituir crímenes de guerra, según Amnistía Internacional y Human Rights Watch en sendos informes. Los responsables: los servicios de inteligencia estadounidenses en su denominada lucha contra el terrorismo. Se reportan casos en Pakistán, Afganistán y Yemen.

"US officials responsible for the secret CIA drone campaign against suspected terrorists in Pakistan may have committed war crimes and should stand trial, a report by a leading human rights group warns.Amnesty International has highlighted the case of a grandmother who was killed while she was picking vegetables and other incidents which could have broken international laws designed to protect civilians.

The report is issued in conjunction with an investigation by Human Rights Watch detailing missile attacks in Yemen which the group believes could contravene the laws of armed conflict, international human rights law and Barack Obama's own guidelines on drones.

The reports are being published while Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister, is in Washington. Sharif has promised to tell Obama that the drone strikes – which have caused outrage in Pakistan – must end.

Getting to the bottom of individual strikes is exceptionally difficult in the restive areas bordering Afghanistan, where thousands of militants have settled. People are often terrified of speaking out, fearing retribution from both militants and the state, which is widely suspected of colluding with the CIA-led campaign".

Ciencia actual

Aquí les dejo dos enlaces muy interesantes. El primero, los llevara a  "Genome Biology", y nos descubre el funcionamiento de un reloj biológico dentro del material genético. Se trata de un trabajo fundamental por sus aplicaciones en el conocimiento del desarrollo de patologías de la vejez y también de los mecanismos del envejecimiento.

El otro trabajo aparece en "Science" y tiene que ver con la importancia del sueño en la fisiología del sistema nervioso central. Todos los animales duermen, de una u otra forma, así que el valor homeostático del sueño no es exclusivo del ser humano. Para decirlo en palabras sencillas, durante el sueño se produce un proceso de limpieza de toxinas. Ya se sabía que dormir bien era sano, necesario y que algunas enfermedades graves cursan con alteraciones del sueño. Ahora un modelo experimental ha descubierto parte de los efectos moleculares del sueño en mamíferos.

"Writing in the journal Genome Biology, Horvath showed that the biological clock was reset to zero when cells plucked from an adult were reprogrammed back to a stem-cell-like state. The process for converting adult cells into stem cells, which can grow into any tissue in the body, won the Nobel prize in 2012 for Sir John Gurdon at Cambridge University and Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University.

"It provides a proof of concept that one can reset the clock," said Horvath. The scientist now wants to run tests to see how neurodegenerative and infectious diseases affect, or are affected by, the biological clock.

"These data could prove valuable in furthering our knowledge of the biological changes that are linked to the ageing process," said Veryan Codd, who works on the effects of biological ageing in cardiovascular disease at Leicester University. "It will be important to determine whether the accelerated ageing, as described here, is associated with other age-related diseases and if it is a causal factor in, or a consequence of, disease development".

Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain

1. Lulu Xie1,*, 
2. Hongyi Kang1,*, 
3. Qiwu Xu1, 
4. Michael J. Chen1, 
5. Yonghong Liao1, 
6. Meenakshisundaram Thiyagarajan1,
7. John O’Donnell1, 
8. Daniel J. Christensen1, 
9. Charles Nicholson2, 
10. Jeffrey J. Iliff1, 
11. Takahiro Takano1, 
12. Rashid Deane1,
13. Maiken Nedergaard1,†

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹Division of Glial Disease and Therapeutics, Center for Translational Neuromedicine, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
2. ²Department of Neuroscience and Physiology, Langone Medical Center, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA.

1. ↵†Corresponding author. E-mail: nedergaard@urmc.rochester.edu

The conservation of sleep across all animal species suggests that sleep serves a vital function. We here report that sleep has a critical function in ensuring metabolic homeostasis. Using real-time assessments of tetramethylammonium diffusion and two-photon imaging in live mice, we show that natural sleep or anesthesia are associated with a 60% increase in the interstitial space, resulting in a striking increase in convective exchange of cerebrospinal fluid with interstitial fluid. In turn, convective fluxes of interstitial fluid increased the rate of β-amyloid clearance during sleep. Thus, the restorative function of sleep may be a consequence of the enhanced removal of potentially neurotoxic waste products that accumulate in the awake central nervous system.

Modern-day slavery

Interior de una maquiladora

En pleno siglo XXI la esclavitud no ha desaparecido. Mauritania encabeza la lista con una prevalencia del 4% de la población. Gracias a la organización australiana Walk Free Foundation (WFF) se cuenta con un índice que alertará del desarrollo de diferentes prácticas esclavistas así como de los países involucrados. No faltan formas más o menos toleradas, como costumbres o parte de la cultura:matrimonios concertados, abuso sexual contra niñas, servidumbre doméstica, entre otras. Muchas empresas occidentales con frecuencia mantienen a sus trabajadores en fábricas ubicadas fuera de Europa en condiciones inadmisibles próximas al trabajo forzoso.

"An estimated 30 million people worldwide are living in modern-day slavery, according to the inaugural Global Slavery Index published by Walk Free Foundation.

The index, compiled by the Walk Free Foundation, said that while India had by far the largest number of enslaved people, the problem was most prevalent in the West African nation of Mauritania, where 4 per cent of the population was deemed to be held in slavery.

The estimated 2.9 million people in modern slavery in China "includes the forced labour of men, women and children in many parts of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and forced marriage", said the report.

The foundation hopes the annual index will help governments to monitor and tackle what it calls a "hidden crime".

"A lot of governments won't like hearing what we have to say," chief executive Nick Grono said. "Those governments that want to engage with us, we will be very open to engaging and looking at ways in which we can better measure the issue of modern slavery."

Established in May last year, the WFF is a 20-strong team based in Perth, Australia, founded by philanthropists Andrew Forrest - chairman of Fortescue Metals - and his wife, Nicola".

44 Nepalese workers died between 4 June and 8 August in Qatar By Pete Pattisson
"Dozens of Nepalese migrant labourers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labour abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar's preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.

This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. The investigation found evidence to suggest that thousands of Nepalese, who make up the single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, during a building binge paving the way for 2022.

According to documents obtained from the Nepalese embassy in Doha, at least 44 workers died between 4 June and 8 August. More than half died of heart attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents". (Pete Pattisson en The Guardian)

Bienvenidos a Panamá euracas.

Las Cumbres Iberoamericanas no han servido hasta el presente para casi nada práctico. Al FMI le importan un comino. Son papel mojado para las bolsas. Se han dado, eso sí, anécdotas vergonzosas, como la salida del jefe de Estado español ante la facundia desatada del difunto Chávez (RIP). Un real chiste cuartelero, vamos. Sería deseable que Spain fuera ahora con un poco menos de arrogancia. Con más conciencia de que no tiene mucho de que presumir. Pedirle gracia y donaire intelectual sería mucho pedir. En esa especie de juegos florales, se dan palmaditas, se exhiben bandas y banderas y luego, si te he visto no me acuerdo.Y allí se toparán con Don Evo Morales. Al que maltrataron de forma asquerosa. Pues eso, bienvenidos euracas encartonados. A ver si también la cagan como de costumbre.

"Spain apologizes to Bolivia over Morales

 

The Spanish government presented on Monday to the Bolivian Foreign Ministry a note to express its apologies for the "incident" with the plane of President Evo Morales, which occurred two weeks ago. The president of Bolivia was banned from landing to refuel in Europe due to the suspicion that Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent, was also on the flight.

The document was presented by the Ambassador of Spain in La Paz, Ángel Vázquez, who deplored the conduct of his colleague in Vienna, Alberto Carnero, whom Morales accused of wanting to inspect his plane to see if he was travelling with Snowden, wanted by the United States for divulging confidential information.

"We regret this fact, we present our apologies for this proceeding, which was not appropriate and disturbed the president," creating a "difficult situation and unbecoming of a head of state," Vázquez told the press after handing the note to the Vice-Chancellor of Bolivia Juan Carlos Alurralde".